


I’ve Stumbled My Way Back

by Allatariel



Category: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Introspection, Memories, Wing Hove (Shannara)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allatariel/pseuds/Allatariel
Summary: After that fateful reunion on the beach, Pyria muses on her conversation with Allanon and what his return means to her and the destiny of the Four Lands.
Relationships: Allanon/Pyria Elessedil, Pyria Elessedil & Mareth
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	I’ve Stumbled My Way Back

**Author's Note:**

> Pyria is my favorite character and I was heartbroken by her death and the overlooked potential of her character. So I looked into the books and was further heartbroken to discover that she wasn’t in them. Hence, I wrote this self-indulgent, overwrought, sort of character study thing weaving some book canon into show canon. Enjoy!
> 
> Comments and constructive criticism always more than welcomed and so greatly appreciated! Any advice on tagging would be amazing.

_All I wanted was your love_  
_The taste of your sweet kiss_  
_That river may flow deep and wide_  
_But it can’t stop my longing for this._

* * *

Princess Royal Pyria Elessedil, estranged sister to the King of the Elves and erstwhile keeper of the royal archives in Arborlon, could hold a grudge. Had done for thirty years now. In fact, the only semblance of royalty she yet retained was her pride. That pride had carried her up the hill past her home to these cliffs overlooking the sea and away from the man who had been the cause of the grudge, if not whom it was with.

She wondered with some bitter amusement how Eventine was dealing with Allanon’s return—a living, breathing contradiction to his campaign of comforting lies. Her little brother should be getting used to defiance by now, she supposed, what with Amberle’s flagrant disregard for Elven tradition still fresh. _To have been a bee in that garden!_ Pyria smirked wickedly, her eyes absently tracking a petrel gliding above the surf. She imagined the look on Eventine’s face as he had spotted his beloved granddaughter, only child of his lamented firstborn son and heir, among the flushed and exhilarated new members of the Chosen—older and greyer like herself, more than a little resembling their father in all probability and to his eternal consternation. Pyria sighed; thought of her brother was merely a distraction from the guilt lurking at the edge of her consciousness over the invective she’d hurled at Allanon on the beach below.

She had retreated as much from herself as from him. It had been a low blow, and even though a self-righteous fire had flared within at her barb hitting its mark, she had felt regret wash over her upon witnessing the resignation in his eyes. There was also a measure of perverse relief beneath everything, that after all this time apart she still understood him well enough to know what to say, that she still meant enough to him for her words to hurt. He had given her the makings of this weapon himself, thirty years ago, when their search for descendants of the Shannara bloodline had again ended in yet more death.

Allanon had taken all those failures on himself plainly in the letter he’d sent her in the wake of that devastating blow. He’d written of it as a matter of course, with no wallowing self-pity, just as he had all his letters to her. His first letter had been written months earlier on the heels of their first loss, heralding his return to Arborlon and the need for her aid in researching another heir. Each subsequent letter had become more urgent with each new death, and more personal, more exposed—in contrast to the near impassive reserve he presented to the world at large. And each return had brought him travel weary to her lonely archive, where she had watched as his weariness fell away, his solitary burden shifting as if at her will to be borne between them. Side by side, day and night, they had shared the smaller failures and triumphs of their scholarly quest. Hope had kindled again and again at the discovery of each potential child of Shannara.

That last time, however, had been different. They had exhausted all available avenues of inquiry—the Waylandrings of Emberen had been their last hope. And yet for a few hours following the arrival of his letter, Pyria had desperately picked over the sources they’d already scoured together, pulling down volumes already deemed of no help, searching for something, anything they might have missed. But they had been too thorough, too meticulous. Pyria had known her archive too well. There had been nowhere else to look. In Arborlon, at any rate.

Her mentor and predecessor’s personal records had surely held the information they sought, but neither the woman, her wife, nor her records had been seen in nearly five years. A great wave of despair had then risen within Pyria, and she surely would have succumbed for a time at least had it not been for the arrival of her eager young nephew, Crown Prince Aine. Eventine’s hunters had found something—or someone, rather. Eldra Derrivanian, former keeper of the royal archives and Pyria’s mentor, had been sighted in the tiny village of Archer Trace, not fifty miles northeast of Arborlon.

Unwilling to trust this news to a messenger, even in the ancient and esoteric language of the Druids he’d taught her, Pyria had ridden out herself. She had been, after all, the fastest rider in Arborlon, quite probably in the whole of the Westland at that time. And time had been precious, even a few days could have made the difference between life and death. At least that is what she had told her brother, even herself at first.

But the truth was, she had desperately wanted to be with him, to watch as this new hope she carried dawned bright inside him, burning away the oppressive shadow of death. Pyria had, at some point over the long months of their partnership in this quest, fallen thoroughly, utterly in love with this man who bore so selflessly the weight of the world on his shoulders. And if the relief and warmth in his eyes at each sight of her had been any indication, then Allanon had no small measure of feeling for her as well. In truth his whole being seemed to lighten in her presence and she would offer him what solace that presence afforded sooner rather than later.

And Allanon had certainly seemed comforted by her arrival in his lonely camp late in the evening two days' ride from Arborlon. He had appeared hollowed when she’d first sighted him, through a large copse of trees on the banks of a flowing stream staring blankly into the embers of his sputtering fire. But then he’d raised his head, his eyes had fixed on her and the look of wonder she saw there had her reeling along with him. He’d hastened to meet her, relief and joy suffusing his features in the dying rays of the sun and he had gathered her into his arms, pulling a still reeling Pyria straight from the saddle and into a needful embrace.

Months of absently lingering gazes, half caught from the corner of bleary eyes, accidental yet thrilling brushes of backs and arms and fingers in the narrow spaces between shelves and over cramped worktables felt as though they had all culminated in that moment. Wrapped tightly in each other’s arms warding the looming threat of an uncertain future, Pyria had realized she’d drawn as much comfort from him as he seemed to have drawn from her. But that looming threat would not be held at bay for long and instead of being bolstered by the good news she brought him, he’d spiraled into uncharacteristic self-recrimination.

_“You’ve already provided me with more than ample opportunities. Yet it seems the harder I try to influence the course of destiny, the more innocent lives slip through my fingers.”_ Allanon had raised his hands between them, studying his palms balefully, reproachfully. _“All these lives are in_ my _hands—_ on _my hands! I play at holding back the tide of darkness while unwittingly guiding them all like puppets to their end!”_ He had bitterly rebuked himself, laying bare fears too raw and intimate for a man regarded by all to be so distant and stoic as to have seemed carved from stone.

To all save Pyria. As they had worked alone together in her archive those long months, he had let her see how his solitary mission weighed on him, how her efforts, no matter how small, eased that burden. Whether intentionally or not, he had let her see the man at the core of the cold, inscrutable Druid. And just now he had let her see that he was afraid. After all that time trying to get ahead of the enemy and save someone to save the world, this man feared he had and would again fail not just the Four Lands, but Pyria’s trust in him. She could not allow that. It simply was not true.

_“The manipulations of destiny are not your doing simply because you are the only one who can read the signs. We all dangle on hidden strings, even you.”_ Pyria had reached for his hands then, holding them tightly between them and his eyes had remained focused on their joined hands with the same piercing scrutiny. Urgently she had implored him to believe the truth of her words. _“You are not the puppet master! You seek to protect what is within your power. You can’t save everyone, yet you continue to try.”_ Still gripping one of his hands, Pyria had raised her other hand to his face, her fingers brushing the rune burned into his temple and drawing his gaze to meet her own. _“None of this is your fault,”_ she had told him fiercely—an absolution, a blessing. Allanon had held her gaze and raised his free hand to cover hers against his bearded cheek, softly pushing the heel of her palm into the corner of his lips, just the barest touch. The gravity of his dark eyes and his tender touch had drawn her like an invitation and she had made her intent plain in a slow and deliberate rising up, her eyes only leaving his to fall closed as she had pressed her mouth to his.

Pyria shivered, the sensation drawing her out of her reminiscence even as her mind and body conspired to hold her in the memory with the heat rising in her cheeks recalling the feel of Allanon’s hands, warm and urgent on her face, his fingers tracing her ears with gentleness. The salt wind cooled her flushed skin and she gazed at the ragged ridge jutting out into the ocean off to her left, standing firm as the waves raged about it.

She was still angry, had a right to her anger, but twisting her words of comfort from that night that had meant so much to both of them was cruel. And unfair. Pyria knew none of what was happening with Amberle or the Ellcrys was his fault, or Amberle’s for that matter. Destiny, as ever, pulled all the strings. Allanon was merely reading the signs just as he had thirty years ago. And those signs pointed to her niece.

Amberle had come to her out of desperation. Pyria was the only person Amberle knew who didn’t believe magic had died out decades ago. For Amberle to have forsaken her sacred duty, she must have been thoroughly shaken and convinced that this was serious. She may have flouted tradition in running the Gauntlet, but that in no way meant she lacked respect for the place she’d earned in doing so. She was terrified at what she saw, what she believed was her fault, what she might do. Amberle’s descriptions alone had been chilling, even without her very palpable terror. Her visions sounded like seer’s visions, but magic gifts tended to manifest well before the teen years, and Amberle had never before mentioned anything of the sort. No, something else was going on.

Pyria could acknowledge, now that the initial shock of seeing him again was passing, that Allanon was the best person to help Amberle understand and deal with what was going on. Even if he wasn’t always the most forthcoming of guides. Pyria had learned to read him rather well thirty years ago, and he had increasingly had difficulty keeping things from her during their work together, to the point where he had ceased even trying. _Or so I thought_. Allanon had certainly kept all knowledge of this Druid’s sleep locked securely away from her. Though Pyria had to admit they had not had much time to talk about anything but the work all those years ago. And eventually they had found other uses for what time they had together.

Their time together might feel like a lifetime ago to her, but if the Druid’s sleep truly was as irresistible and deep as he had said, then it might not feel so long ago to him. How many times had he had no choice but to sleep? How many years had he spent in hibernation? How old was he? He had certainly seemed to be forthcoming on the beach, maybe he would have answered her questions, like he had so many years ago, if she hadn’t stormed off. Or maybe he would have rebuffed Pyria’s inquiries with the cryptic impassivity she had hoped never to again face. He might have tried, at any rate. She wanted answers. Amberle needed answers. Pyria could not let him keep her or her niece in the dark.

Part of her feared he would take Amberle and leave her behind without another word as he had before. A smaller, craven part of her hoped for it. That part of Pyria could hardly bear to look at him. Allanon was just as she remembered, just as she had hoped he would look returning to her in those first few months still in Arborlon after the war, then in Storlock as she grew heavy with child. _Oh, Mareth, where are you?_

There was a cruel irony to his arrival now with Mareth gone these twelve years in search of him. Their parting had been as bitter and deliberate as her parting with Allanon had been subtle and unexpected. For the most part, she considered dwelling on regret a waste of time, but she regretted keenly what she’d done to drive Mareth away. Pyria remembered the moment when it all started—the joy on her little, ten-year-old girl’s face that fateful afternoon nineteen years ago.

_“Mama! Mama!”_ Mareth had called, laughing as she raced into the little garden in which Pyria had been pulling weeds thirty yards back from the clifftop where she now stood. Pyria had delighted in her daughter’s happiness. It had seemed her sullenness over not being able to attend Aine and Phryne’s wedding in Arborlon had finally passed and Mareth was back to her bright and inquisitive self. _“I was on the beach and I was so bored and I just wished for some ships and there they were!”_ Mareth had beamed at her, grabbing her hand eagerly and pulling her toward the cliff. _“Come see, Mama!”_

Pyria’s blood had run cold. Her mind had crowded with what she’d seen during the three years they’d spent traveling the Four Lands after leaving Storlock. In her search for any scrap of information about Allanon’s whereabouts, she had seen firsthand the effects of his absence. In the Westland, Eventine had sought to soothe the fears of his people concerning yet another return of the Warlock Lord with assurances that there was no more magic in the world for him or anyone to draw power from. Those lies had reached far beyond the Elven Kingdom—to every corner of the Four Lands.

A great many took comfort in the notion of a world free of magic. But her brother’s lies were only comforting to those without magic. And it was a fragile comfort, easily threatened by the mere existence of those few formerly blessed now cursed to have been born with innate magic of any kind. Those poor souls lived in constant fear of persecution or worse. The more Pyria had searched, the more she had feared for Mareth’s safety were the magic that most assuredly lived within her to one day awaken.

All those fears had cracked lightning fast through Pyria in that moment and she had snapped at Mareth so harshly the girl had looked as if she’d been struck. Pyria had immediately felt remorse, but her fear for her child had warred with her instinct to comfort her. The urge to comfort had won out with Pyria gathering a teary Mareth into her arms murmuring apologies, but her hesitation coupled with the dread that had caused her to lash out in the first place had set the first wedge between them.

That wedge had been driven home mere hours later when Pyria had found Mareth on the beach waving joyfully to her illusory fleet of ships. Stalking across the sand, her dread had burned into anger—at Allanon for abandoning them and the world, at Eventine for calling her a liar while his lies had fueled the bigotry her daughter had not yet learned to fear, at herself for failing to prepare more for the inevitable moment that had finally come upon them.

_“Magic is dangerous, Mareth!”_ Pyria had thundered over the surf, making Mareth jump about to face her approaching mother and break her concentration, her ships evanescing behind her on the ocean.

_“They can’t hurt anyone, they’re not even real,”_ Mareth had countered with theretofore uncharacteristic defiance, though her tone had been far more plaintive than her words.

_“When has reality had one whit to do with fear?”_ Pyria had questioned in that longsuffering tone every mother possessed and every child knew was a mistake to answer. 

_“Mama, it’s just fun,”_ her young voice had been so confused and hurt, but Pyria could not allow herself to be swayed again, Mareth needed to understand.

_“Fun? It’s not a toy, Mareth. Magic always comes with a price.”_ Memories of the runes branded into Allanon’s skin glowing red hot when reaching for his magic, of his hands and arms burned black after being forced to dig too deeply had flooded Pyria’s mind. Unbidden, the memories had been replaced with visions of Mareth suffering those same wounds. _“It’s a curse, carried in your father’s Druid blood and passed on to you.”_ It had been easier to blame Allanon for it all and ignore the small magic in her own blood. Afterall, Pyria could do nothing more to safeguard Mareth than admonish her to ignore her magic.

_“My father was a Druid?”_ The hunger in Mareth’s voice had been palpable, her little face full of eager curiosity.

Pyria had told Mareth so very little about her father, apart from reading some of his letters to her as she’d searched for him, though at four years old Mareth had not understood the reason for their nomadic existence. She’d even taught her how to read the Druid’s language they’d used to correspond. That had been before she’d seen the danger, however, before the creeping fear he truly was gone from this world had taken root.

Whispers of seers and healers and illusionists driven out of towns and villages, or worse chained in dark cages never to see the light of day again, had haunted the roads and inns they travelled. The word Druid still held some respect for a time and Pyria had followed the scraps of tales, none more recent than the war, of a tall, dark man in a faded purple surcoat emblazoned with arcane sigils bringing aid to every corner of the Four Lands. But those tales had started to sour with suspicion and when the murmurings of a human Druid man had been replaced with those of an elven Druid woman and peculiar halfling child, Pyria had searched instead for somewhere safe to raise her daughter. Mareth had been seven when they’d settled in the lonely coastal cliffs of Wing Hove.

Pyria had meant only to warn Mareth of the danger her magic would place her in among the fearful, intolerant people of the Four Lands; she couldn’t bring herself to talk about Allanon. Couldn’t bring herself to speak the words that he might be dead when she had known deep in her bones that it was not true. And it would only have served to fuel Mareth’s interest in her magic.

_“We’re not talking about him, we’re talking about you,”_ Pyria had gripped Mareth’s shoulders hard, making her whimper, and had stared harder into her dark eyes, so like her father’s. _“Swear you won’t use your magic again. Swear to me, Mareth!”_

_“I swear, mama! I swear!”_ her daughter had sobbed and for the first time in her life, she had resisted for a moment when Pyria had moved to pull Mareth into her arms.

It had been years before Mareth asked about her father again, though Pyria never saw her use magic after that horrible day. The ensuing arguments had gone much the same, until twelve years ago when Mareth had finally had enough of her mother’s secrecy and threatened to leave. Out of desperation, Pyria had tried to deter Mareth from leaving by telling her Allanon would reject her, that looking for her father was a mistake. Her gambit backfired and Mareth had taken their only horse, Pheidda, and ridden away that very night.

Pyria sighed in shame and regret. At least now she would have the opportunity to tell Allanon about Mareth herself instead of Mareth having to be subjected to the indignity of his incredulity. Pyria bristled at the mere thought of it. But she knew he had firmly believed it was impossible for him or any Druid to have children. His trust in what his mentor had taught him was absolute. Mareth would have no defense against Allanon’s clearly false certainty save her mother’s word for who her father was. Pyria herself had the memories to back up her assertion, if Allanon wanted to confirm for himself what he should already know, that there had been no one else since long before him.

The thought of feeling Allanon in her mind again sent a thrill down her spine. He had told her all those years ago that the fact she could sense anything at all meant she had a rare gift, a kind of magic. It was an odd sensation to feel the touch of another person’s mind somehow inside her own. With Allanon it had been heady and intimate from the first, but she knew well how violating it could feel when someone who lacked respect for the sanctity of others’ minds tried to take what they wanted.

It had happened only once. A man with a gift much like Pyria’s own had been trained by a minion of the Enemy. During the war, he had tried to control her much like he had the Prince of Callahorn, but Allanon had trained her to resist, and in a way that left her attacker completely unaware of her resistance. The encounter had been awful, but it would have been so much worse without the defense Allanon had taught her.

On the beach earlier when Pyria had refused to help them find Amberle, Allanon had re-enacted their early training sessions. He had made a show of it, looking Pyria in the eye and raising his hands before his sternum, gripping his right fist in his left and closing his eyes. And then she had felt him touch her mind for the first time in thirty years. The familiarity of the feeling had surprised her, but she was still out of practice, she had screwed her face up in concentration, something she had broken herself of quite early in her training. She had ordered her mind as he had taught her, thinking a rapid series of vivid misdirections behind her hastily constructed defense.

But she had been unprepared for his counter distraction. As he had crossed the threshold into the maze she had made of her mind, he had ordered his own behind him—her archives, only a few days ago, vivid and fresh. Allanon had carried her across the threshold of his mind many times after they had become lovers in the Druid cave after that Skull Bearer had almost killed him. Pyria knew how it felt to enter his mind, but had never done so under her own power. Her archives, his disappointment that she was not there, his anger that the archivist didn’t even know her name, his grief that she might have died, all of it had beckoned to her. And as she had been drawn in, Allanon had traversed the expanse of her meticulously curated maze and found what he had sought. 

Pyria heard Allanon’s footsteps approaching slowly on the dune grass, the rhythm still so well-known to her even after all these years, but she did not feel him in her mind, had not in fact since he’d pulled Amberle’s location from her. That was the only reason he had come here, to fulfill his duty to the Four Lands. Had Amberle not come to her, he would not have either. Well, regardless of his reasons, he was here now and Pyria had things to say. Perhaps he’d followed her up here to explain her niece’s place in all this, to try to ease Pyria’s mind. Perhaps he would say goodbye, thirty years too late and finally, for she was unlikely to live another thirty years while he _hibernated_. No, he would not leave her behind. She would not let Amberle face without her whatever destiny awaited. Focusing on the cragged black rocks strong against the churning white waves, Pyria measured her breathing, waiting to see what he would do.

Still attuned to his every move, Pyria felt Allanon settle a pace behind her right elbow. “When the sleep calls, there is no time for goodbyes,” he told her, soft and weary with the burden of regret, pulling at her resolve. She turned, drawn to face him, her breath rushing out through parted lips as she searched his earnest face, saying more to her than his words. “Being a Druid is not a choice. It's a calling.” Again, his words were plain, direct but inadequate on their surface without the feeling of his voice, the language of his eyes, at once resigned to this reality and yet desiring another.

“You will never know how sorry I am…” Finally his words became personal, rising nearer the intimacy of his tone, the intensity of his gaze. It was too much—Pyria looked away. Allanon reached for her hand then, pulling it up and grasping it gently but firmly between them just as he had the first time he had told her he loved her. His memory was impeccable, she knew. He was intentionally evoking that moment between them and to complete the spell, she felt the gentle touch of his mind, not seeking anything from her but conveying his emotions to her as foundation for his next words, “or how much you still mean to me.”

She had not expected an apology, let alone for him to express how deeply he still cared for her, and neither could make up for the last thirty years. But she loved him and he loved her and that was something. She looked up at him and smiled. Maybe when this current crisis was over they could find Mareth together, but right now she thought he looked as though he wanted to kiss her and she rather thought she might be inclined to let him.

A bestial roaring rose above the familiar cadence of the surf and wind, shattering the moment. Allanon turned toward the awful screaming, Pyria following his gaze. A flapping sound, almost akin to the beating of Roc’s wings, could now be heard approaching with the roaring. Allanon circled around, searching for where the noise was coming from, seeking to keep himself between Pyria and whatever threatened them, his arms corralling her at his back.

“A Fury,” Allanon identified the oncoming horror, seemingly by sound alone for Pyria had yet to glimpse anything but clouds. Reaching back for Pyria, he kept his eyes on the skies. She took his hand, drawing some little comfort from the surety of his grip as he pulled her to a craggy scarp farther along the cliffs away from the path leading down to the beach. Pushing Pyria toward the meager cover the eroded edge of the higher ground provided, Allanon rounded on the looming thing veiled in cloud cover. “Stay behind me!”

Pyria stared in awestruck terror as a thing which appeared to have leapt straight from a book of her once-beloved archive emerged from the clouds and bore down on her and Allanon. Thin, translucent wings stretched from the sinewy forearms and spindle-like, clawed digits of the vaguely humanoid form. Its skin was the mottled purplish grey of decaying flesh, its eyes black pits, its mouth gaped unnaturally wide to bare jagged teeth and issue forth that unearthly sound. A Fury, he had called it, and there was no better word for the sound of its ghastly screaming. It was nearly upon them when a more familiar scream rent the air, drawing the attention of not only herself and Allanon, but the beast as well. The Fury wheeled about and fell upon the closer target, the frantically approaching form of her daughter Mareth.

“No!” Pyria wailed in anguish—feeling as if her heart was being torn to shreds not thirty yards away on the windswept clifftop where Allanon had only minutes before softened her heart with words of regret and love. Mareth’s agonized shrieking mixed sickeningly with the Fury’s horrible noises in Pyria’s ears. She surged against Allanon’s back, her fists clenched and beating at his shoulders, wanting to tear the beast apart with her bare hands to reach her child. He grabbed her about the waist as she tried to push past him.

“Stay back!” he warned as she struggled against his grip, her hands straining against his chest, scrabbling at the clasps of his surcoat. “Please, Pyria, let me deal with this.”

The edge of desperation in his voice cut through the haze of protective rage in her mind. Pyria nodded mutely as her anger bled away into burgeoning grief, leaving her limp. She looked up at Allanon and he held her gaze for a moment before inclining his head grimly and releasing her to charge toward the Fury’s heaving back. Without his support, all Pyria could do was crumple where she stood, watching Allanon extend his Druid sword, raise it aloft, and leap as the Fury turned to face him, his surcoat flying out behind him.

Allanon brought the blade down hard, severing the beast’s right arm. He directed his momentum smoothly into a spin, swinging his sword above his head, the hulking creature following suit haphazardly now freed of the counterweight of its arm. The Druid’s blade sliced through the Fury’s neck as it faced away from him, decapitating it cleanly and sending the head spiraling away from the two combatants and Pyria. But the beast’s own momentum carried its body through its spin, its left arm striking Allanon soundly on his left flank and hurling him hard into the ground, as the Fury finally collapsed onto its back away from him.

“We have to go— _now_!” Allanon lurched to his feet, collapsing his sword and lumbering toward her, without even a glance back at Mareth’s still form.

“Mareth!” Pyria heaved herself up and lunged forward, trying to get to her daughter, but Allanon caught her, pulled her in front of him.

“She’s gone,” Allanon’s eyes bored into hers, but she did not feel the brush of his mind against her own. He left her thoughts to her alone. “She is gone, my l—”

“Mom!” Mareth’s voice rang clear and impossibly strong for one who should have been at death’s door. And from farther away.

Pyria gasped a sob with a joy almost beyond bearing and Allanon’s breath drew in sharply and his eyes widened. They turned in each other’s arms toward the voice and the accompanying rhythm of running feet. Fifteen yards away just past the body of that damned Fury where her daughter— _our daughter_ —should have lain were the shredded remains of what appeared to be a goat, the head mostly intact. As if time were replaying itself, Mareth crested the hill just as she had appeared to when the Fury had attacked and Pyria’s knees buckled, Allanon’s arms the only thing keeping her from collapsing again.

Mareth stopped short, curling in on herself, her eyes falling closed for a moment before her attention snapped to Allanon. _Can she feel it?_ Pyria’s strength returned and she surged forward, slipping from Allanon’s slackened hold and flying toward her daughter.

“Mama!” Mareth sobbed, returning her gaze to her mother as she launched herself into Pyria’s arms. “I’m so sorry!”

“Oh, my girl!” Pyria cradled her daughter against her, both of them shaking with relief and regret. “I’m sorry, too, Mareth. So sorry.” Pyria felt Mareth’s tear-soaked face press into her neck and she cupped her hand against the nape of her daughter’s neck. “I thought I’d lost you,” she gasped and pressed her own tear-streaked face into the side of Mareth’s head.

“Aunt Pyria!” Amberle’s urgent concern invaded the cocoon of Pyria and Mareth’s reunion.

Pyria heard the cadence of what must have been Shea’s boy and Amberle’s running come to an abrupt, gasping stop. _Wil, Allanon called him Wil._ She raised her head to see Wil attempting to keep Amberle behind him and away from the Fury, even dead as it was. Mareth turned in Pyria’s arms toward Amberle and Wil, pressing close into her mother’s right side.

Wil stood gaping down at the hideous head lying in his path. “Is that—”

“It’s a Demon. A Fury.” Allanon answered Wil’s half-asked question as he approached, his breathing still somewhat labored from battle. She felt his hand on her back, urging her forward as he addressed all of them. “There will be more coming. We need to leave.”

Pyria nodded and herded Mareth along in her arms, unwilling to let her go just yet, but mindful of the need for haste. Allanon stalked past them, his movements stiff to her eyes, not at all the fluid power she remembered. Something was wrong. Or perhaps the passage of time had affected him more than had been apparent at first sight.

“That’s him,” Mareth breathed, no question in her tone as they watched him disappear under the crest of the hill headed back down toward the beach.

Pyria hummed. There would be no more secrets between them. Mareth would have her answers, but the weight of this new reality had to settle first. And they had more immediate concerns in the form of a pursuing Demon horde.

Wil shook off his horror, his features determined, and Pyria was struck by how much he looked like his father in that moment. He turned to follow Allanon and reached for Amberle’s hand, but she ignored him, finally wrenching her eyes from the dead Fury to Pyria.

“Aunt Pyria?” Amberle’s voice quavered, her eyes searching Pyria and Mareth with concern and curiosity as they approached her.

“I’m fine, Amberle.” Pyria took Amberle’s right hand in her left, squeezing it reassuringly. “Allanon is right, we can’t stay here. Take Wil and gather your things, hurry!”

Amberle nodded, grabbing Wil’s hand before she took off pulling him back the way they’d come. Pyria watched them go as she and Mareth resumed their progress, her mind turning to her own preparations. She needed to change, her dress was not at all suited to riding, and she had a few small things she wanted to take with her.

“What’s going on, mom?” Mareth asked without looking up, still curled tightly into Pyria’s side. Apparently she was just as unwilling to leave the comfort of her mother’s embrace as Pyria was to let her. The last twelve years gaped between them and there wasn’t time right now to begin filling in those years, but they bridged the distance with their arms clinging fast.

Destiny might be pulling the strings, but they were tied together.

“The Four Lands are in danger and destiny is stringing us all along,” Pyria mused aloud, brimming with bitterness and crypticity. Less than an hour since Allanon had charged back into her life and she was already sounding just like him.

Mareth froze, pulling her mother up short and drawing away slightly. “What does that even mean?” She asked, irritation and anxiety evident in her tone.

Pyria sighed at herself. It wasn’t Allanon’s influence at all, and it was just this sort of thing that had driven her daughter away in the first place. More than the last twelve years sat between them. She hugged Mareth to her side and raised her free hand to her daughter’s cheek, drawing Mareth’s apprehensive eyes to her own.

“We’re going home, Mareth,” Pyria told her plainly, running her thumb soothingly over Mareth’s cheekbone and smiling reassuringly.

“Mom, we are home,” her daughter corrected with the sad patience of a grown child realizing an elderly parent had lost their tether to reality since last they’d been together. And, of course, Mareth had known no other home, at least not with her mother. That Mareth had still called this place home warmed Pyria’s heart, but Pyria had another home, was bound to it by her roots, and through her, Mareth was as well.

“To Arborlon.” Amberle might take some convincing, but it was time for all of the Elessedil women to return home.

* * *

_I’ve gone running from the devil_  
_Times I’ve beaten down his path._  
_I seen the flight of the dove_  
_And I’ve stumbled my way back._  
—Leslie Smith, “Northern Cross”

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite performance of ["Northern Cross" is by Cry Cry Cry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoIS74rUKsA) from their eponymous album.
> 
> _I started this in September of 2018 and last edited it in August of 2019. Finally found the courage to post it._


End file.
